As experienced disability lawyers who have represented hundreds of disabled police officers and firefighters, we respect and admire our hard-working California public safety officers. They put their lives on the line for all of us daily. So we are dismayed by the negative press campaigns that have recently surfaced surrounding police and firefighter disability benefits.

In August of 2013 the Orange County Register made the controversial claim that disability retirement has “. . . become an escape hatch for unwanted police officers and firefighters, and a way to pad the pensions of those at the end of their careers.”

Similarly misleading articles regarding public employee disability retirement benefits have been run in newspapers across Southern California – including Los Angeles County.

As skilled disability attorneys, we believe that this negative press is simply an unfortunate “smear campaign” – launched in a misguided attempt to require California’s disabled public safety officers to pay more taxes . . . and to put more money in the disability insurance companies’ pockets.

Under the California Public Employees Retirement System (CPERS or CalPERS), which covers most city police and firefighters, a disabled retiree will usually get at least half of his or her pension tax-free. And this could be the very reason that certain media outlets in Orange County and Los Angeles are protesting the safety employee’s disability benefits.

Of course public safety workers with dangerous jobs are much more likely to become permanently incapacitated by illness or injury. That is why we agree with the public safety unions who assert that California disability laws are absolutely necessary to protect these public employees in dangerous professions.

Carroll Wills, communications director for the California Professional Firefighters Association, was quoted in the Orange County Register’s article as saying: “It’s an incredibly stressful job … a life or death job . . . we think the people who put their lives on the line deserve the protection (the laws) afford.” And the experienced disability lawyers at Cantrell Green wholeheartedly agree.

To the police officers and firefighters who serve Los Angeles, Orange County and the State of California we say thank you. We believe that those who have been injured or disabled in the line of duty have earned the tax benefits that accompany their CalPERS disability retirement benefits.

And our disability lawyers will continue to fight aggressively to ensure that every injured and disabled police officer or firefighter gets the disability retirement benefits that they rightfully deserve.